Race expert cries foul on ‘hood rats’ comment
TRENTON » Under fire from cops in his department and community activists enraged over his numerous public flubs, Trenton Police Director Ernest Parrey Jr. has insisted he’s not stepping aside.
Backed by the city mayor who, for now, has indicated he’s not making a change in leadership, Parrey has also insisted he’s not a racist despite emergence of body camera footage that caught him calling city residents “hood rats.” The Trenton branch of the NAACP called on Parrey to resign over the comment.
Now a renowned scholar said his use of the term “hood rats” carried an obvious bigoted undertone despite the police director’s declaration that he meant it only to describe “unscrupulous” people who tend to commit crime.
“Clearly, the term is demeaning,” said Beverly Daniel Tatum, an educator, author and former longtime president of historically black Spelman College in Atlanta. “Referring to anyone as an animal is disrespectful and dehumanizing. There is a long history in popular culture of referring to black people as animals. In that context, yes, there is a racial connotation.”
Tatum was dubbed by The Atlantic “one of the country’s foremost authorities on the psychology of racism.” Her work in the field of race relations is respected, and she has written several books on the topic, including the bestselling Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
Tatum’s denouement is a strong rebuke of the police director’s claim to City Council members during a closed-door meeting that his “hood rats” comment had nothing to do with color or race.
Despite growing pressure on Parrey to step down as head of the police department, Mayor Eric Jackson hasn’t said whether he has changed his mind about the police director after initially supporting him.
“We’re gonna talk about just the daylighting,” Jackson said following a news conference last week to announce the start of a creek restoration project.
When pressed, Jackson said he had not seen or read a Trentonian article about comments Parrey made to City Council members at a closed-door Sept. 7 executive session in which he defined for the first time the word “hood rats” and appeared to walk back his public apology for using the term while justifying his reasons for doing so.
The article was hard to miss. The Trentonian obtained a recording of the meeting and published it in its entirety online. City clerk Dwayne Harris condemned City Council members for allegedly leaking the tape.
A reporter was not allowed to ask any additional follow-up questions as Jackson was whisked away by his PR flaks into a tinted black Chevrolet Explorer that drove away.
Parrey was required to appear before City Council after receiving a third Rice Notice, a letter informing him of potential disciplinary action being taken against him.
At the meeting, Parrey admitted he used a “poor choice of words.” Then he attempted to justify the disparaging comment by suggesting an ESPN writer, Wright Thompson, didn’t face backlash for using the same term in a story about MMA fighter and crossover boxer Conor McGregor.
McGregor, who’s white, has had his own racial travails after telling boxing champ Floyd Mayweather, who is black, to, “Dance for me, boy.”
Like the famous MMA fighter, Parrey’s comment was directed toward black city residents he told council members had been fighting outside of a book bag giveaway event.
“When I have young children trying to get to a book bag giveaway, and I have young men that are out there in the way of these kids getting where they need to go, I have a problem with that,” Parrey said.
He had a lengthy back-andforth exchange with councilman Alex Bethea, who requested the police director appear before council to discuss his racial slur.
Bethea told the director he expected more from someone in leadership, taking offense to Parrey’s contention the “hood rats” comment wasn’t racist because he made it in front of two black police officers.
“The problem would not have surfaced if you were talking to two white officers?” Bethea asked. “‘If the director is talking this way to us and we’re black, what is he saying to the other guys, the white guys?”
Sharing similar thoughts as the councilman, Tatum said, “The fact that the black police officers did not speak up about it does not tell us much about why they remained silent. I imagine it would be difficult for officers (of any race) to challenge their supervisor.”
The police director’s ill-fated remark reminded Tatum of another instance where the head of a police department known for mistreatment of blacks made disparaging comments about minorities.
“In the 1980s, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates discussed the use of police chokeholds in an interview with the L.A. Times, saying, ‘We may be finding that in some blacks, when it is applied, the veins and arteries do not open as fast as they do in normal people.’ Suggesting that black people are not ‘normal’ was widely criticized.”
Like many experts, Tatum agreed the police director’s comment could undo community policing efforts.
“Using disrespectful language is likely to increase feelings of distrust in the community,” she said.